Earlier this week, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush joined Education Next editor-in-chief Marty West to talk about the lessons he learned dealing with crisis and how those lessons can be applied to the coronavirus pandemic and the challenges it poses for K-12 education.

Among the suggestions Bush offers state and national leaders: Be clear and transparent, connect on a human level, and gather the best possible minds regardless of political persuasion.

“Just as in every disaster or every disruptive time in world history, incredible things happen when you’re forced to do things,” Bush says. “Because you have no other option, generally, you do them.”

Florida Virtual School student Maya Washburn, pictured here in Lofoten Islands, Norway, has been able to keep up with her classes from anywhere in the world with her MacBook Air and a reliable WiFi connection.

When she was a junior in high school, Maya Washburn spent six weeks of her fall semester backpacking around Europe with her mother. From England to Sweden, Norway to Slovakia, the Czech Republic to Austria, the Fort Lauderdale teen never missed a day of class back home.

Her classrooms were trains, ferries, coffee shops, restaurants, hotel rooms, and even cabins at campsites. All she required to maintain her studies were her MacBook Air, a reliable WiFi connection – and Florida Virtual School (FLVS).

“It’s been amazing,” said Maya, 17. “I love making my mark on school and on the world. It’s brought out so many passions that I don’t think I ever would’ve discovered or tapped into if I was not a member of this school.”

FLVS may sound like a recent technology, but it dates to when “Seinfeld” was still the nation’s most-watched TV show. Founded in 1997 as the country’s first statewide K-12 virtual public school, Orlando-based FLVS operates as its own school district.

Over its two decades, FLVS students have successfully completed nearly 5 million semester courses, and not just in the Sunshine State – it has served students in all 50 states as well as more than 100 countries and territories around the world. Today, FLVS offers more than 190 courses, from core subjects such as English and Algebra to electives such as Guitar and Creative Photography. FLVS is available to full- and part-time (or “Flex”) students from public, private, charter and homeschool backgrounds.

Because FLVS’s funding is determined by successful course completions rather than time spent in a seat, students, teachers and parents have the flexibility to customize instruction to each student’s needs. Its graduates perform as well as or better than other students in Florida and the nation in most Advanced Placement course exams.

Unlike the scores of students who were forced by COVID-19 to become online learners, Maya went the virtual route willingly – she has been a full-time FLVS student since ninth grade. She will graduate this month with a 4.2 grade point average and has been accepted to the Florida International University Honors College, where she will pursue a pre-law curriculum.

For Maya, it was all about finding the right fit.

She initially attended a public elementary school but was miserable by third grade from being bullied. She transferred to a private school, which was terrific — until it wasn’t. In middle school, she became an outsider in a cliquish environment, and again was bullied.

“I never really fit into any box,” Maya said. “I’ve always marched to my own beat.”

Homeschooling, her first choice, was not an option – she’s the only child of a single mother who was working full time outside the home. So, she took the initiative to research Florida Virtual School. Mother and daughter agreed to give it a try.

Four years later, it has proved to be the right choice.

“FLVS was perfect for me,” Maya said. “I’m very self-disciplined, and FLVS has broadened my horizons in the sense that I directly apply what I learn in my courses to my everyday life, which I live outside of the clear-cut class times that I might have to stick to at a traditional brick-and-mortar school.”

She considers the flexibility and opportunities for growth provided by FLVS the perfect atmosphere for success.

“The learning environment has never been stagnant,” she said. “It’s ever-evolving.”

Maya experienced the usual jitters about adjusting to a new concept of learning. A friend who joined FLVS at the same time soon dropped out and returned to a brick-and-mortar school.

“She needed someone to sit next to every day, I completely get that. We had different learning styles,” Maya said. “It’s not for everyone.”

She acknowledges there was a bit of a learning curve, but otherwise says the transition was “pretty seamless.”

“The teachers are so encouraging and supportive and helpful,” she said. “It’s the best education I’ve ever received.”

Maya Washburn will graduate from Florida Virtual School this month with a 4.2 grade point average.

Although she attends an unconventional school, Maya still enjoys the conventional trappings of a high school social life. She’s belongs to six of the more than 50 clubs FLVS offers: Student Council, Mega News Network (which she helped found), National Honor Society, National English Honor Society, Virge Literary Arts Magazine – oh, and she just started Glee Club this year.

Students meet online and face to face. Student Council hosts Shark Week, which includes a daily virtual event – trivia day, costume day, contests – before culminating on Fridays with an in-person get-together. Maya’s favorite FLVS event is the annual Club Awards Day in Orlando, where students get to celebrate their clubs and be recognized for their accomplishments.

“That’s just a little taste of what we do,” Maya said. “We do a lot of connecting students to each other, and to students and administrators.”

The first day of Maya’s senior year began on a bus from Prague to Berlin last summer, when she and her mother returned to Europe for a three-month backpacking tour. She used her finely honed time management and prioritization skills to complete a dual-enrollment humanities class through Polk State College, while checking internet signals and time differences to ensure she could lead student council meetings despite being thousands of miles away.

Because Maya’s education has not been defined by the system she attended or by where she lives, she and her FLVS classmates already were surfing the wave when COVID-19 closed brick-and-mortar schools across Florida and sent teachers and students scrambling to institute a new, unfamiliar form of learning. In fact, FLVS stepped into the breach, providing 100 digital courses – core curriculum, electives, Advanced Placement, and career and technical education – free of charge to all K-12 Florida schools through June 30.

It also quickly ramped up its server capacity, from the 215,000 students it served last year to accommodate 320,000 students by March 31, to 470,000 by mid-April, to 2.7 million by May 4.

Alaska took notice and contracted with FLVS to provide online learning to about 150 students. FLVS also will train Alaska teachers how to lead online courses themselves, and then license its digital curriculum for use by the new Alaska Statewide Virtual School.

That was a swift reaction to a rapidly changing landscape with an eye on the future.

Among plans being bandied about for re-opening schools this fall is an option for continued learning at home for students from high-risk groups, such as those who live with elderly people and those with compromised immune systems. Other students who got a taste of remote education and enjoyed the flexibility it offers might opt to continue that route either full time or part time.

Maya already has felt the impact. When the student council met the Friday after the virus shut down Florida schools, members were told that the usual end-of-school-year officer elections was being postposed to the beginning of the next academic year because FLVS expects a lot of new students in the interim.

“FLVS is growing,” Maya said, “and it will become the new normal for a lot of students.”

In this video special to redefinED, author and education reformer Michael Horn talks with education pioneer Julie Young, the founder of Florida Virtual School, a student-centered online-learning provider that focuses on competency based education rather than traditional seat time. Julie is now the CEO of Arizona State University Prep Digital, an online high school that offers an accelerated path toward college admission and the chance to earn concurrent high school and university credit.

Horn and Young discuss the ways in which COVID-19 is a moment for teachers and families to transform learning. They also discuss a new online learning case study Young co-authored that has been published by the Pioneer Institute.

“Right now, it’s about the fundamentals. Anything that is remotely filler needs to go away. What are the standards we need to meet to feel as if we have accomplished what we need for this school year? Let’s look closely at that and focus our plans around it.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

·How Arizona State University moved to full remote learning within 48 hours and the active role the university has taken in lending support to other schools

·What states and school districts should be doing to move from the crisis of shifting to distance learning toward a more stable, sustained distance learning future

·Preparing for a variety of fall schooling scenarios based on the virus’ effect, including continuing full-time remote learning for those who want it

·The benefits of mastery-based education models for students with unique abilities

·Incorporating social and emotional learning into the distance-learning model

IDEA Brownsville in Brownsville, Texas, opened in 2012 and is one of 96 IDEA schools in Texas and Louisiana serving nearly 53,000 students. IDEA will open schools in Tampa and Jacksonville in the next two years.

A not-for-profit Texas-based charter school company that plans to expand to Florida has received national recognition for 15 of its high schools.

IDEA Public Schools, which is scheduled to open four schools in Hillsborough County next year and four in Jacksonville in 2022, announced that 15 of its college preparatory schools were ranked among the top 1 percent of the most challenging high schools in the nation by the Jay Matthews Challenge Index high school rankings. The index ranks public and private high schools by their ratio of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge tests given in a school year, divided by the number of seniors who graduated that year. (The list is intended to rank schools that serve average students; those that serve elite students are ranked separately.)

The index included 11 IDEA schools among the top 25 of all high schools nationwide. Additionally, IDEA schools ranked in the top 25 percent of charter schools nationwide, with eight schools ranked among the top 10 in Texas. IDEA schools also ranked in the top 25 among Texas charter schools; IDEA College Preparatory McAllen was named the top high school in Texas and was ranked third in the nation.

The charter school company, which primarily serves students from low-income families, also was recognized by U.S. News & World Report’s 2020 Best High Schools. Two of its schools were among the top 25 percent of charter schools nationally and nine were among the top 10 percent of high schools in Texas overall. The U.S. News rankings are based oncollege readiness, reading and math proficiency, reading and math performance, underserved student performance, college curriculum breadth and graduation rates.

“IDEA believes deeply that every child can and will succeed if given the opportunity, and we provide our students with an enriching, nurturing and high-expectations educational experience,” said Adam Miller, vice president of advancement for the nonprofit company, which operates 96 schools in Texas and Louisiana. “We know that if we challenge our students with rigorous content delivered by exceptional teachers, our students will succeed.”

IDEA schools require each student to take at least 11 Advanced Placement courses, a contributing factor, Miller says, in the schools’ 100 percent college admission rate. Miller said the requirement also has helped boost IDEA graduates’ rate of college completion. Fifty percent of the class of 2012 earned bachelor’s degrees within six years, compared with 11 percent of low-income students nationwide who earn four-year degrees by age 24, according to the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education.

Nine out of 10 IDEA students are eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch, generally an indicator of poverty. The company typically operates campuses located near traditional schools rated as failing.

When governors in Texas and Louisiana closed school campuses due to the coronavirus pandemic, IDEA quickly pivoted to distance learning for its 52,000 students and distributed more than 12,000 laptops to students in need. IDEA also provided wireless routers and mobile hotspots. Teachers have kept students up to speed with a combination of live instruction, recorded instruction and work packets.

In addition, the company has provided mobile meals to students younger than 18 who live in communities where IDEA schools are located.

“While this has been a new experience for most of us, our students, teachers and families have risen to the challenge,” Miller said.

The coronavirus hasn’t delayed the company’s plans to expand to Florida.

“IDEA is on track to open our first four schools in Tampa in 2021 and Jacksonville in 2022,” Miller said. “Over the next six years we will open 32 schools across Florida, creating 25,000 high-quality seats for kids in neighborhoods with persistently low-performing public schools.”

Editor’s note: In this commentary, Jawan Brown-Alexander, Chief of Schools for New Schools for New Orleans, proposes that it’s possible to take what has been learned from the coronavirus pandemic and use it to reimagine what schools could look like in two, five or even 15 years. The piece originally published April 29 on Education Post.

I am a former school leader and a current educational strategist who works with charter leaders from across New Orleans. Together, we have been thinking about the intersection of educational inequity and the disparate impact of COVID-19. With so much instability in our children’s educational experience, we know that high-quality curriculum matters more than ever before. We are considering what to do now to support our children, as well as what comes next.

Scientists continue to work on ways to stop this pandemic—and when they finally do, we will turn the page and look to the future. It’s hard to believe now, but folks will get back to work, restart the economy, and begin to see past this horrifying time in our nation’s history. When we rush back to our lives, however, we will still face the reverberating impacts that are coming from this crisis, especially in our minority communities.

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley said it best in a recent tweet—“Our Black and brown communities face a crisis within a crisis.” In Louisiana, for instance, while Black residents make up around 30% of the state’s population, as of April 20, 56% of Louisianans who have died from COVID-19 have been Black.

That inequity is not only found in the toll of the virus itself. We will also see an impact on those people of color who faced insecurity in jobs, food or housing even before this moment. And we will see an impact in our education system, too. In Louisiana, as in many states, school buildings will be closed through the end of the school year; the learning loss that normally occurs during the summer is now a real risk even before summer begins. The cost of a slow rollout of distance learning could be significant, and take the greatest toll on children of color.

When the virus hit, schools and districts with mostly White and affluent students could have the confidence that most of their students would be able to fully engage with online distance learning right away. For districts like New Orleans, with mostly students of color and students who are economically disadvantaged, quick efforts to roll out online distance learning faced a significant barrier: Many children lacked the technology needed to connect.

Taking action to keep kids connected and learning

Our district leadership took immediate action to purchase the materials those students needed, but it takes time to procure, safeguard and distribute technology citywide. Many of our students were—and are—also dealing with housing and food insecurity that makes it more difficult to launch and maintain an at-home learning environment.

This is not unique to New Orleans. Across our nation, districts that serve mostly students of color, and those with high rates of economically disadvantaged students, will face a steeper climb than others when it comes to distance learning. But by having a strong, clear distance learning plan, we can make sure closed buildings do not mean closed schools and drastic educational losses.

This means connecting students with technology, if at all possible. It also means continuous engagement with students and families, through the phone, the internet, or both. And it remains as important as ever to provide a high-quality, standards-aligned curriculum. We cannot fully control that students may take in less material than usual right now. We can control whether or not that material is the highest quality it can be.

Many Tier-1 curriculum vendors are providing updated materials for a distance learning context online. Schools can take advantage of this, lowering the lift of translating existing materials for a new kind of delivery. Schools can also continue to provide their teachers with (virtual) professional development around their Tier-1 curriculum, so they can better adjust to this “new normal.”

Academics are only one part of the response

Academics are just one part of this, though. A strong distance learning plan also takes students’ basic needs and mental health into account. During this pandemic, Black and Brown children will lose loved ones at a disproportionate rate compared to their White peers; this will take a deep emotional toll. An incredibly high number of New Orleans’ children had already experienced trauma prior to this event, and this horrible crisis could cause those numbers to increase.

It is imperative, then, that our distance learning plans involve connecting mental health experts, like social workers, to provide support to students, families, and school staff members who have been heavily impacted by this crisis. Resources for physical health care, food, shelter, and more remain critical as well. We can leverage external partnerships to help do so—they are more important than ever. Making certain that students receive vital supports is key to the strength of our community and the growth and health of our students.

We can reimagine what school looks like

We must maintain our focus on the present moment and through the close of the school year. But we must also look even further ahead. There is much we will learn from this crisis—from how to support students experiencing trauma, to how to connect children to local resources, to how to best leverage technology. We can take what we have learned to reimagine what school will look like in the next two, five, or even fifteen years. We can also join in conversations with our families, community members, fellow educators and students themselves about what we will need from federal, state, and local officials as we re-open schools.

Together, we can keep this crisis from digging even wider educational divides. Our children of color already face great inequities. If we focus on distance learning and whole-child support, and keep an eye on the future, we can help keep them safe and learning today and expand their opportunities tomorrow.

Benjamin Franklin Academy in Salt Lake City is an assistance program to homeschooled children with special needs.

Around the country, talk of closures and quarantine is giving way to plans for re-opening. Despite moving in fits and starts, Utah officials found something unique for families and students to look forward to even if schools are closed for the rest of the year.

On Friday, state lawmakers approved a proposal to provide flexible learning scholarships to children with special needs. The Utah account-style scholarships combine the features of what are commonly known as tax-credit scholarships (like Florida’s scholarships for children from low-income families) and education savings accounts, as found in Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

Individuals and corporations will receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations to scholarship account-granting organizations. The scholarship organizations will use the contributions to award accounts to students. Parents can use a scholarship account to find educational therapists that meet a child’s unique needs, buy textbooks, and pay tuition at a private school or for online classes, to name a few possible uses.

Utah’s new scholarship offers families and students multiple private learning options, similar to education savings accounts. By funding the accounts through charitable contributions, Utah officials connected the scholarships with the private choices of businesses and other donors.

In 2016, Jason Bedrick, now policy director at EdChoice, Clint Bolick, former Goldwater Institute vice president and current Arizona Supreme Court Justice, and I described how such an arrangement could work in our research for the Cato Institute. We wrote, “Tax credits simply leave money in the hands of taxpayers who are free to choose which scholarship organizations to support with their own money,” and by adding the savings account component to the scholarships, Utah families can challenge their students or otherwise design a learning experience for a student.

Utah’s scholarship accounts followed a winding path to approval. Gov. Gary Herbert vetoed the proposal near the end of the legislative session, suggesting the scholarships would require new taxpayer spending. State analysts, however, had already reported that every child that leaves a public school to use a scholarship would save the state $1,871. While estimates were not available for existing homeschool or private school students, children with special needs often require expensive interventions no matter their school or learning routine.

With a global financial crisis settling in, lawmakers everywhere should be looking for effective, cost-saving ideas. The scholarships will be worth different amounts based on a family’s income, similar to K-12 private school scholarships available in Indiana. Utah children from families with income levels at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty line will receive scholarships worth approximately $9,000 per year, according to Utah Policy, while students from wealthier families will receive scholarships worth between $5,000 and $7,000, depending on a family’s income.

States around the country need innovation such as this. Before the pandemic, families of children with special needs were already aware of the kinds of products and assistance their children need to be successful and, if possible, learn to be independent. But during the recent shutdowns, meeting the needs of children diagnosed on the autism spectrum or living with Down syndrome presented a challenge to parents and educators. Families using accounts in North Carolina and Arizona have reported that they can continue many services for their children because the accounts are so versatile. Families of these children celebrate when their students make progress and are justifiably fearful those improvements will be lost when normal routines are interrupted.

Utah’s scholarships will be active in January 2021, which gives officials time to sort out some of the features clearly available to children using education savings accounts, such as the ability to save money from one year to the next to prepare for future expenses. Utah policymakers should look to the states with accounts to find answers to common questions about how students can access more than one product or service.

Good ideas like this have a way of breaking through, despite a governor’s veto pen. And this one arrived just in time for Utah families who are ready for life after the pandemic.

LiFT Academy student Raina Phenicie, 16, participates in a virtual physical education class from the kitchen in her Pinellas County home.

On the first day of virtual school, Raina Phenicie attended all her classes, including P.E.

“It just blew my mind,” said her dad, Scott Phenicie. “Here’s a kid in my kitchen doing jumping jacks and pushups. She was sweating and breathing and drinking water.”

When music time came, she was banging on pots and pans.

Raina, 16, was born with Velocardialfacial syndrome, a genetic condition characterized by a varying combination of medical issues. Among them are palatal differences, heart defects, difficulty fighting infection and low calcium levels. The condition often involves learning challenges.

Like many of her classmates with neurodiversities, Raina sometimes gets distracted. But Raina’s school, LiFT Academy in Seminole, specializes in celebrating unique abilities. So, when the coronavirus pandemic forced schools to move online, it was business as usual for LiFT Academy teachers.

“We’re masters of accommodation,” said Kim Kuruzovich, executive director of the K-12 nonprofit private school that normally operates on two tree-lined church campuses about 25 miles west of Tampa. Ninety-six percent of the school’s 140 students attend on private school scholarships. Of those, 48 participate in the Gardiner Scholarship Program for students with unique abilities. Two receive a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship. (Both scholarships programs are administered by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.)

Beyond 12th grade, the school offers LiFT University Transition Program, a four-year post-secondary opportunity for students to develop skills necessary for independent living.

Kuruzovich, a co-founder of LiFT Academy and the mother of a daughter with learning differences, says the key to academic success is the same whether students attend school onsite or online.

“It’s about knowing each student well and providing accommodations so that education works for them,” she said.

Those accommodations could include allowing a child to stand in front of his or her workstation or sit on a balance ball to do schoolwork. Or it could mean building in more frequent breaks, especially for younger students, or encouraging a child to do pushups against the wall if he or she needs to release energy.

But even in the best-managed classrooms, behavior issues can crop up. Add the stress of an all-virtual classroom, and those challenges could escalate.

Raina’s father, Scott, built a makeshift tent around her workstation to help keep distractions to a minimum.

At LiFT, which stands for Learning Independence For Tomorrow, teachers have been successfully managing their virtual classrooms in recent weeks by employing a few strategies. Administrators have all-access passes to Zoom classes to help deal with any academic or behavior issue that may arise. Kuruzovich keeps the door to her virtual office open all day in case a teacher needs a consultation.

Students are muted in live classes unless they have a question. Teachers enable the chat button only during the last five minutes of class. The opportunity to socialize is a reward for staying focused.

“Classroom management is a big focus at LiFT, as our student base is very unique, and so at times it can be tough during a regular day,” said music teacher Damien Ward. “So, when students are home with their siblings around, TV, cell phones, etcetera, it can be hard to keep their full attention during a class period.”

To maintain order, Ward has banned eating during class. He mutes all students while he’s speaking. He’s lightened some workloads and extended deadlines.

“Instead of work having to be finished in class, I have allowed a few students to simply make sure it is emailed to me by the next class period, as I know we have students who struggle with technology or who will panic under the pressure of completing work immediately,” Ward said. “Thus far, it has been working out just fine.”

He’s also become a fan of screen sharing.

“I can set my students a task and if I feel that they aren’t concentrating fully or if they feel that they have something to share with me or the class, they can share their computer screen with me and can show me instantly,” he said.

English teacher Meghan Flores has a group of “very active boys” in one class who often need help staying on track. Besides setting aside office hours when students can virtually visit with her if they have questions or need clarification on assignments, she’s made it a point to get them moving during the school day.

“When I need to make accommodations, it is really simple to allow students to stand and stretch just outside of camera view so they are not a distraction to other students,” she said.

Guidance from experienced online educators indicates LiFT is on the right track with its classroom management strategy. Florida Virtual School, the nation’s largest online education platform, recommends that schools provide an accessible code of conduct and that they remind parents and students of expectations, maintain communication, make lessons engaging and fun, and be familiar with virtual classroom tools that can be used to prevent or correct discipline problems.

Phenicie is pleased that LiFT has made his daughter’s transition to online learning seamless.

“She’s more focused right now,” said Phenicie, who built a makeshift tent around Raina’s kitchen workstation to minimize background views. “In class, little things distract her. But now, she’s got this computer screen to focus on. We watch her from a distance, and we’re seeing independence.”

Something Phenicie hopes LiFT and other schools will continue to keep front and center when they return to brick-and-mortar settings.

Berta DellaSalla, a seventh-grader at Bishop Larkin Catholic School, works on assignments online as her father, Gene, recovers slowly from coronavirus.

As schools continue to navigate their new reality in the face of coronavirus, a Catholic school in Port Richey is facing a challenge that goes beyond educating children and cuts to the heart of what it means to be a community.

On March 10, nearly a week before most brick-and-mortar schools closed, a parent at Bishop Larkin Catholic School tested positive for Covid-19. Administrators made the decision to shut the school down overnight, necessitating an immediate switch from in-person to online instruction.

“It was not a very difficult decision,” said principal Stacy Cervone. “Our priority was the safety of our students, staff and families, and finding the best way to keep everyone safe.”

Bishop Larkin Catholic School, accredited by the Florida Catholic Conference and a member of the National Catholic Education Association, serves 217 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade. Eighty-one students attend on a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and two attend on a Gardiner Scholarship for students with unique abilities. (Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, administers both scholarship programs.)

After receiving guidance from the Diocese of St. Petersburg, teachers began using an online platform called Educator Pages to post assignments. Students sign in each morning, then get started on four main assignments, which must be completed daily, covering core subjects like math and science that are presented as a live lesson, a recorded lesson or an interactive PowerPoint.

Students also engage in personal live learning time and choose one elective or resource class assignment to round out their day.

Cervone, a 22-year veteran educator who served as an assistant principal for Hillsborough County Public Schools before coming to Bishop Larkin a year ago, knew that her school needed to go above and beyond caring for students’ safety and educational needs. She considered it part of the school’s mission – working in partnership with parents and parish communities in a spirit of compassion, service and leadership – to aid the family directly affected by the virus.

Gene DellaSala, whose daughter, Berta, is a Bishop Larkin seventh grader, thought he was coming down with a cold in late February following a visit from a business associate who had recently traveled to China. In early March, Gene, 46, learned that his associate had tested positive for Covid-19.

Gene’s doctor diagnosed him with a cold and sinus infection, but his symptoms – a bad cough, stomach cramps and chills – worsened. His wife, Bertha, contacted the Pasco County Department of Health on March 9, and his doctor arranged for him to be tested for coronavirus. The next day, test results confirmed that Gene was the first person in Pasco County to contract the virus.

Bertha knew she had to contact Cervone.

“I felt terrible knowing that BLCS had to be shut down since our kids love it and appreciate the one-on-one relationships they have with everyone,” Bertha said. “But, on the other hand, we were relieved that no one else was going to be exposed to the virus and that they took the precautions to make sure (the school) was safe for everyone.”

For the past three weeks, Bishop Larkin parents and staff have been bringing the family take-out restaurant meals. They’ve picked up medications from the pharmacy. They call and text every day to check in. One parent offered to stop by the school to pick up books for Berta and deliver them to the house.

Bertha said the school’s support has been invaluable as Gene remains quarantined on one side of the house. She doesn’t drive, so help with grocery delivery has been a huge help. An online replication of school spirit days has been a morale booster.

But most of all, Bertha said, she’s appreciative her daughter has been able to continue learning. The educational continuity, in a virtual format, is helping Berta deal with her father’s illness and cope with the fact that she can’t be near him.

“She thrives on a routine, so it’s been hard to keep her motivated and engaged,” Bertha said, adding that the school counselor has called several times to make sure Berta is okay.

Meanwhile, Gene is recovering slowly but continues to test positive for coronavirus. Until he tests negative on two consecutive visits to the health department’s parking lot, where he is swabbed by a technician, he must remain in quarantine.

The school community has pledged to stand by the family for the duration.